


Stay With Me

by kay_emm_gee



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 00:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary sees him, and she knows what is coming, because death follows them everywhere. </p>
<p>She would follow Francis anywhere though, and so when the axe falls, his hand is outstretched and she is smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

> That dance in 3x03 slayed me, especially with the instrumental version of Stay With Me, thus this.

In her twilight days, Mary kept seeing him: a flash of gold here, a wink of white there.

It should have told her what was coming.

The arrest, the trial, imprisonment and then the truth (she was going to die), it all came in such a flash, just like death had come to her before, when it had taken him from her.

_I should have known_ , she thought bitterly, penning her last wishes at a desk that wasn’t hers, as she awaited dawn and her execution.

She also should have known that he would be there, standing at the end of the hall as she laid her head down on the block. He wasn’t a boy anymore though. No, he was everything he should have been if he had lived: a man full grown, dressed as the King of France should be, laugh lines threading with tired ones on his face, smiling even though the crown never was a light thing to carry. They lightened the burden for each other, all those years ago, and it had been almost impossible when she had needed to do it alone.

Yet here he was, buoying her through one last trial, her last ever tribulation, making sure she was no longer alone. 

_You came_ , she breathed, tears flooding her eyes as the executioner moved into place.

_Always_ , he said, and it broke her heart that she had never gotten to hear the real rumble age would have put into his voice.

The axe raised, and his hand reached out.  _Stay with me._

His voice was soft, saying those words she had spoke to him in his own last days, but to her it seemed to echo throughout the empty hall, expanding until it filled every crevice in the stone floor and struck even the highest eave. It wove its way into her heart too, the way it had on that sunny afternoon, when they had met for the first time in years. She had babbled on, and he had said not much, but it had been enough. They were so young then, so unaware of the tragedy that would befall them, but even now, on the brink of death, she did not regret stepping from the carriage that day. 

_Always_ , she murmured.  _It’s always been you._

The axe fell, and all she saw was gold.


End file.
